Major Suckage and Corporal Cu Chi Are At It Again

Dear Major Suckage,

      What an atrocity America has become.  Far from virtuous are we.  Far from honest are we.  Far from Christian are we.  Those Afghanistan poppies are proving problematic.  Film patrons are mistaking still digital photos rendered with Steve Jobs' software for cinematography.  Film making has become such a crock.  A little man in a box with no ears demands hundreds of millions for his video game, and the people are buying it.  They know no better.  Teachers are the only ones who know better, and we are starving them.  Soon we will be a race of Zombies.  If the man is successful killing off humanity, what will be the fun then?  Duping God?  I think not.  I live in an active electromagnetic field.  No wonder we die of cancer, and the man doesn't care.  Major, you are sucking on my windows again.  Again I will ask how is this possible.  How can air be sucked from my house?  Could it be because your air burning dragoons are at it again.  Churning night and day, day and night, in the sky and in our earth.  It is one big glorious electromagnetic field.  The Academy Awards are this Sunday.  Are you really considering an Oscar for digital stills rendered with Steve Jobs' software?  It is beautiful for you that your films are judged by a generation of sheltered video-game-playing millennials.  They could not know that Daisy Domergue may not have been as evil as they cast her.  What evidence did we have other than Kurt Russell's word?  We lie in America.  We always have.  My ears are cold.  My heart is cold.  Cold, Cold Heart.  Rasul Dufy.  Antibiotics.  Mr. Robot.  Fourth Friday.  Sergeant Pepper.  J.W. Pepper.  I hear your plane again Major Suckage, for the umpteenth time today.  Over our house you fly, again, and again, and again.  What are you looking for Major Suckage?  Are you watching over your Arms Room?  Why did the Department of Defense put it behind our neighborhood?  Isn't it time it was moved in closer proximity to your base, Major Suckage?  Maybe that new industrial park on the boulevard?  Possibly on Honeycutt next to FTTC's auto repair center?  Do they like it down the street from the Department of Homeland Security, of which no one knows.  No one knows.  That bland building sitting nestled in a berm.  Blandly bleating nothing.  Hundreds of employees on leave for impropriety.  W's quintessential department of pork.  It's a shite state of affairs Major Suckage.  Could you please stop sucking?  

Quinton's Bukaki Fantasy

While T's "Hateful Eight" has some merits frankly repeatedly ejaculating in a woman's face, no matter how despicable she is, is pushing the boundaries of good taste.  Like Inarritu's "The Revenant" it is difficult to discern whether T's movie is serious, a comedy, a farce, or a satire.  With it's bad sound, unrealistic effects, and droll dialog it would seem "The Hateful Eight" is just a bad B movie from the 70's.  I thought of an imported Kung Fu movie and its unsynchronized dialog.  The sound reproduction in T's film is so unrealistic, one can only think it is a farce.  Again like Inarritu's "The Revenant," with all of those beautiful outside images, what's the point when actors speak and it sounds like they are in a cereal box in your kitchen.  This is a lesson for sound design in the future of film.  A story can be told with sound alone, sound effects and images, and more importantly solely with the human voice.  I am just now understanding this concept, because I recorded one of my original pop song's recently.  With an honest story, thoughtful lyrics, tasteful technique, and an opportunity many a singer/songwriter was born.  I lament this lost art.  As "The 8" progressed finally acting became an element of the film.  The camera stopped twitching, looking up nostrils, and creating unneeded drama simply and stopped filming  actors' craft.  When Samuel L. Jackson finally gets to orate as he did in "Pulp Fiction,"  the film becomes engaging.  Engaging is the human voice at its finest.  Boring it is when an actor is miscast, there is no ensemble chemistry, there is no rhythm, and we must watch.  Kurt Russell is a fine actor, and I watched him last night with his equally as able wife, Goldie Hawn.  This was not his part.  Disney is no match for Daisy Domergue, but he gave it his best shot.  The ensemble all were chuckling quietly under their prostitution.  They were getting paid.  

Elect Bernie Sanders President

I don't have anything much to say, but I am tired of looking at the name Major Suckage.  I instead will say the only logical choice for the presidency is Bernie.  Ted Cruz is a hypocrite and a pawn of Texas.  He is a puppet and figurehead like W.  He is being orchestrated by powers we do not want in control in America.  It is obvious when he speaks.  It is scripted not natural.  Hillary is dishonest.  We do not need another Clinton presidency, although at the time I supported Bill.  What has been discovered logically proves Hillary should not be president.  Then there is Trump.  He has his own money but little diplomacy.  Would he bankrupt the U.S. further?  It is risky.  The only logical choice for the presidency is Bernie Sanders.  All one must do is watch and listen.  He knows more about the issues than any other candidate and he is smart.  Hillary is a bullshitter.  Bernie knows what he is talking about.  I cannot imagined a dinner party hostess in the American presidency.  It would be a disaster.  The Clinton's would have fun, just like they did when she was the Secretary of State, a completely inappropriate appointment and one she did not deserve or serve.  As a team they exploited her possible influence to policies in the White House.  Shrewdly they manipulated foreign interests to make money.  We do not need this in the White House again.  Whether anyone acknowledges it Bill Clinton created the housing bust.  He ran with a campaign slogan that everyone in America deserved to own their own home.  The housing markets spinning out of control issues sub prime mortgages to anyone and everyone assuring there would be a market failure when they defaulted on the shady loans.  It proved we cannot trust Wall Street banks once and for all.  They stole most of our American money that needs to be circulating to stimulate the economy.  Send a letter to Santa.  People are poor, and Wall Street got rich.  We do not need a Wall Street liaison in the White House.  Just try to remember the image of Hank Paulson standing on the inaugural podium.  Bernie is Jimmy Carter, so we must decide as a nation if this is the change we need.  Bernie speaks the truth, whether you like it or not.  

Dear Major Suckage,

     I would like to inquire why you are around?  We are experiencing major suckage.  When I open our newly installed and highly energy efficient vinyl windows, there is suckage.   My sheers, which disguise my personal activity, are sucked out.  Even with our furnace off and no discernible air blowing through the ducts, my sheers are being sucked out pinning them against the screens.  What is the source of this low pressure or vacuum, Major Suckage?  If a human is to breath air it must flow into the house.  If the planet is to cool itself the air must be able to flow on its on in its natural state.  A sucking through the huge hole in the ozone over the south Pole is not appropriate.  A sucking from gravitational waves created by two colliding black holes is not appropriate.  Global warming as a byproduct of major suckage must stop.  Meteorologists do not seem to question the bipolar behavior of the earth's weather.  Summer one day and winter the next?  What is causing these huge swings of air movement.  Could it be major suckage?  Major Suckage, are YOU responsible for this sucking?  Do your SD70MACs suck so much air with their turbochargers that the weather patterns on earth are affected?  Jet turbines also suck, but sucking is not the only problem.  If sucking and spewing happen simultaneously...  Isn't this a byproduct of the burning of fossil fuels?  We are burning our breathable air and  consequently polluting it with toxins.  It would seem these naturally occurring processes of life are oblivious to the Koch brothers.  There is no air in space, but does NASA know how to manufacture air?  I would believe Dr. Michael Burry highly is investing in both water and air. Commodities trading.  I guess it is time Americans stop hoarding ammunition and begin hoarding air and water.  The good thing is, unlike those pests in the film "War of the Worlds," SD70MAC's use the same air as human beings.  Ouch.  Eliminate humans and there is more air for them.  Is it a conspiracy Major Suckage?  Thank you.  

Major Suckage, The Erudite Army Officer

Dear Major Suckage,

        Hello, and I hope you are enjoying your new assignment in the trenches at Fort Bragg.  I hear your private plane now.  It is unfortunate The United States Army did not assign you a Lear Jet like the other Fort Bragg Generals.  The rank of Major does have its limitations.  In your new position as overseer of the Cape Fear Railways, I would like to inform you that operating in the trenches, while providing coverage from encroaching enemy fire, does not disguise your position.  It would seem your platoon could learn a lesson from Corporal Cu Chi.  Their strategy of hiding in tunnels rather than operating in trenches secured them immunity from defeat by your army during the Viet Nam War.  Fully I understand the War on Terror could be considered a different animal, or is it?  The inclusion of suicide bombing into methodology differentiates this war from tradition guerrilla tactics.  The futility of attempting to hide munition trains from these terrorist by burying them in tunnels is proving to be an environmental disaster.  They are not hidden.  In fact they are more apparent than if they were above the ground.  The Ground Wave Emergency Network highly was contested by everyone, because no American wanted electricity coursing through our earth.  Now we have electricity coursing through our air, and since the presidency of Bill Clinton, in expanding frequencies.  A proposal is active that will auction more of these microwave frequencies in the near future.  Wireless telecommunications companies are vying for these acquisitions with which to expand their services.  Haven't they scorched the earth enough?  Sound travels faster through solids than through air, so placing parts of the Cape Fear Railroad in tunnels at Fort Bragg only exposes their presence more.  For officers with limited sensory capabilities the adage "Out of sight, out of mind" qualifies.  Sight is only one six human senses.  [sic] Is it five?  Is it seven.  I see dead people.  Is it the Higgs Boson?  The conception, proposal, and subsequent study of GWEN and infrasound historically  conclusively have proven both are a threat to the human race and our God's earth.  Officers like you, Major Suckage, continue with the defense contracts of General Electric to breach the threshold of safe living at Fort Bragg.  Four soldiers returned from the War on Terror and killed their wives and themselves at Fort Bragg.  What could be so grave that all hope is lost?  Could it be that polluting our earth, the only platform upon which we have to live our lives, with electricity and infrasound has proven lethal?  The answer is yes.  President Obama cannot find a reason why youth genocide in America has flourished uncontrollably.  Is it because humans are organic beings utilizing electricity for our existence?  An EKG is a simple reminder that we rely upon both electricity and frequencies of waves for our thought and emotional processes.  If these are interrupted or bombarded with extraneous material, how will our minds and bodies respond?  One only has to ask Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris their opinion about the General Electric conveyor belt buried beneath the ground in close proximity to their homes.  

Soulless Cinema

Being a fan of the old school I was reluctant to spend my green on the remake of "Point Break," but I was bored.  It was Superbowl Sunday.  The day after the remnants of poor taste still linger.  After the Lady redeemed the genre of pop music with outstanding performances of both jazz and show tunes, it was perplexing to view her first few seconds of her rendition of our National Anthem.  I couldn't watch.  Her performance was on par with all the problem laden performances that proceeded hers.  There is a standard for the singing of "The Star Spangled Banner," and it is found in the concept of a traditional music education.  The newly created modern American pop genre feels it is not bound by these ideals.  Like so many filmmakers in America selfishly they indulge their immature passions, and they fail.  Lady Gaga failed yesterday, and it was further insult to the American people.  Then again we are being insulted daily with the 2016 presidential campaign.  How can one take anything seriously?  It is depressing to turn on the television and realize the election of the most powerful political leader in the world is a farce.  Truly if you do care about America's future, this election would seem to have nothing to do with it.  It is a puppet show, and I would guess Rupert Murdoch is pulling some strings.  A transplanted Aussie has no place controlling the news in America.  Much of America is owned by foreign interests.  We have become a barren industrialized wasteland bearing no resemblance to our once free world.  This brings me to my point of soulless cinema.  I have seen three films released in 2015 which all transmitted a similar dynamic.  There were beautiful epic images and lots of location shooting at varying destinations.  No wonder the budget is high.  With all of that visual hubris something was lacking.  It is soul.  I have watched three separate films, "Spectre," "Point Break," and "Sicario," which all suffer from the same bleak perspective.  I am beginning to learn this is the affectation of the millennium.  This is the way millennials feel.  They feel very little, and it is because the barren industrialized wasteland of America no longer feeds our souls.  Millennials would be so desperate with lack of feeling to enjoy the Superbowl half time experience.  I couldn't watch it, because all ready I knew.  I gave the Lady and chance, and she regressed her career.  I assume because it was the NFL, not a pinnacle of Christian sentiment, was orchestrating.  Briefly as a music educator I have to critique her performance.  The National Anthem is that.  It is an anthem not a pop song.  An anthem has a connotation, and it is not a pop song.  When singing an anthem the methodology of pop performance is moot.  Correctly to convey an anthem it must be reverent, spiritual, and selfless.  An anthem is paying tribute to a far greater good than Lady Gaga, the NFL, or television.  A rule of jazz performance applies to the singing of an anthem.  Play the melody straight the first time.  Prove you know and can play the melody straight by singing that way.  Harry will tell you.  The embellishments are moot, extraneous, and embarrassing.  To succumb to that low brow practise was a  mistake for Lady Gaga.  I was disappointed, because her authentic interpretations of jazz music spurred by Tony Bennett and show music were nullified.  People will remember the Superbowl.  Of all the opportunities to set an example for taste, this was it.  Like the 2016 presidential campaign it has failed.  Is this the real Lady Gaga?  It was sickening, but I guess I expected it.  I want to comment on this soulless facet of America.  Today most of the supportive structures that have nurtured artistic performances no longer are there.  Our environment is polluted with waves of all kinds.  To cling to your own wave today takes much effort. The Superbowl was not the place to do with our National Anthem as a vehicle.  There is little time for emotional and spiritual rejuvenation, because our environment no longer contributes.  This is not God's way.  The land of the free formerly did contribute.  It was here first.  The majesty of purple mountains found in mother nature provide spiritual fuel for certain lineages of humanity.  Native Americans are one, and systematically America either has extinguished or emasculated their culture for our own gain.  It is no wonder God's spirituality conspicuously is absent from America and film.  "Bridge of Spies," "Sicario," "The Revenant," and "Point Break" all have become metaphors for this vacuum.  They are giant black holes that suck the spirituality from God's earth.  It must be a trend, and the soulless Playstation is running the game.  Made up characters suffice for real humans, because millennials never have been allowed to develop their own spiritual psyches within the pristine and unadulterated American landscape.  We live in a vast, barren, industrialized wasteland much like the setting of "The Walking Dead."  Is this what we want for America?  It offends me to see filmmakers depict the beauty of God's earth in such a vacuous way. Either you see the glass half full or half empty, and it is clear many current film directors prefers the latter.  Watching their films is isolating, oppressive, and depressing.  Why would any director taint God's glory with nothingness?  It is because they themselves apparently have no soul.  Soul comes from Christianity, and from Christianity comes good.  The majority of followers of the Muslim faith are peaceful followers of Allah similar to Christians.  Only has one rogue faction of extreme religious terrorism misrepresented Islam.  Billy Joel did a better job singing the National Anthem.  Watching a cat in heat on Superbowl Sunday was an atrocity.  

The Slothfulness of Technology

Fortunate I have been the last week to resuscitate a formerly dormant part of my brain.  MIDI.  Musical Instrument Digital Interface.  MIDI was groundbreaking in music technology with its inception and implementation during the l980's.  I own the first MIDI instrument, a Sequential Circuits Prophet 600.  It was not until I arrived in Columbia, South Carolina and befriended a local jazz scholar that I would find the true potential of MIDI.  Jane Olds may have been the first in this region who understood this musical capability and invested well enough to fund her own start up.  After selling a musical spot to what I believe was public television, she purchased a Kurzweil 250 keyboard, a sampler, and with the software program One Step and its cooperative Jam Box interface began programming music on the computer emulating live ensemble performance.  I became friends with Ms. Olds and was privy to gain entry to her modest home studio.  In the living room was the Kurzweil 250, a mammoth black keyboard with multiple tiers.  On top of it sat what I believe was a Mac Classic running the computer program One Step.  With this primitive sequencer Jane successfully sampled live instruments and sequenced notes on the computer which emulated a musician playing them.  It was uncanny what was possible.  A drum set being played via the keyboard?  A trumpet being played via the keyboard?  Today no one much cares about music.  Jazz and classical music are the most unpopular of musical styles in America.  A trumpet you say?  What's that?  Music is dead in popular culture.  One only has to turn on the tube to see the millennial version of what used to be music.  It's not much, and it's not meant to be.  It is meant to submit, and it does.  This millennial version of music will not maintain the test of time.  It will do nothing.  In the midst of this negative reinforcement ,which incidentally surrounds us daily without our active choice I am trying my best to remember what a viable vocation of commercial music is.  In my circumstance it incorporates MIDI, Musical Instrument Digital Interface.  Wow, that was difficult to hash out that brief history, and I am glad it is done.  One reason why I have been having difficulty remembering is because the music industry drastically has changed in the lat decade.  It is a shadow of what it once was.  The overt realization I had was today's technology is making us lazy.  It is doing all of the things for us once we had to do ourselves and enjoyed.  The process was it.  A man is what he does, not what he says.  Today the trend is to let software developers do it.  What do we do?  Not much, just as millennial music does not do much.  That is because a large part of the work or the creative process is being done by software developers.  It is unusual today to see a band on stage today without a laptop around somewhere.  I for one as a seasoned musical performer never would risk having a computer involved in my live music-making process.  Having studied composition at the doctoral level fully I understand the mediums of music that do use computers.  I embrace them and the founding fathers of both IRCAM and music concrete, Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer.  Computers do have their place in music creation but not being a crutch for live musical performance.  When we watch the Super Bowl halftime show this Sunday, try to see who if performing live. Upon reflection I do not feel MIDI and this crutch are related.  By the time millennials got their greedy claws in the music industry, MIDI all ready was dead.  Software plugins were the rage, and the necessity of the PC was sealed.  This is our stunted culture today.  We rely and pay software developers to do our work for us.  They singlehandedly have stunted American pop culture just as corporate monopolies have drained our pockets.  What could be more successful......for them?  We no longer need Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, or Calculus, because we no longer need to think on a creative level.  Self-driving cars?  I will ask the question again.  What are we going to be doing while the car is driving us?  The answer is something selfish.  (having sex, texting, drinking coffee, putting on makeup, or other inane meaningless tasks)  The need for us to DRIVE, to see, to think, to react are being sedated.  Is this what we want, to be drugged? It used to be about the process.  Through this process we achieved self-awareness.  We became human.  Millennials are not human in a traditional sense.  I choose now at the ripe age of fifty-three to say, "That's the younger generation.  That's they way they do it.  Don't judge them."  As an educator no longer can I adopt this philosophy.  The world is headed down the wrong path, and Congress has failed.  The common good no longer is of concern.  It is, "Get what you can, can it, and sit on the can."  This is what Capitalism has bred, slothfulness and ignorance among the common people.  If the pursuit of the dollar makes us ignorant, how can we look in the mirror every day?